OO9 Ruston Proctor part 4 - lower bodywork.

As the body print is for the upper body only eveything under footplate level has to be scratchbuilt. I've used plasticard for the frame sides and bufferbeams.

The loco has a dropped cab, so the rear of the frames have a cut-out below the cab doorway. It took me two attempts until I was happy with the shape of the cut-out, first of all I tried marking out the plasticard, but I wasn't happy with the result so for the second attempt I tacked both frames togther with a little solvent (a little too much actually, they were a pig to seperate...), then made a reduced photocopy of the drawing from the Parkinson book, which was glued to the frames;

Then of course the rest was just easy file work. A semi-circular cut-out was also needed to clear the flywheel casing (the semi-round part under the body sides).
Note the extra material on the body in the cab doorway, this needed to be cut away before the frame sides were fitted. I cut one side first, cyano'd the frame side in place (along with the rear bufferbeam), then did the same with the opposite side. This meant that the cab backsheet was supported at all times;

Frames were made from .030" sheet, but for the bufferbeams I used .020" with microstrip for the channeling. It took three attempts until I was happy with the front 'beam, on the first go I drilled lots of .35mm holes and started glueing in microrod for rivet detail but wasn't happy with the result, on the second attempt the 'beam bowed due probably to me using too much solvent. Both times I made completed units to glue straight under the body. On the third attempt I only added the middle and bottom detail strips, fixed the 'beam onto the body, then finally glued the last two pieces of microstrip in place;

Also added at this stage is the cab floor, and I've made a start on filling in the cab interior.
Footsteps are a single piece of brass cut from scrap etch fitted into a step filed into the rear frames;

Now the frames need detailing and buffer/couplings fitting, and the cab interior finishing off.

I've use cyano (Bostic Glu&Fix) for all styrene to print joins, epoxy for brass to styrene and solvent for styrene to styrene.

Paul.

Sunday service.

A two-car class 150 sets out from Buxton on an overcast blustery Sunday morning*, forming the 10:29 service to Manchester;

The up line has recently been relaid with steel sleepers (which sat patiently waiting next to the line for about two years before finally being used).

Twenty minutes later the 9:50 from Manchester Piccadilly arrives in Buxton in good time, this time it comprises of a four-car 156 unit;

The 9:50 doesn't stop at Dove Holes, perhaps the good folk in Dove are too busy at church on a Sunday morning to visit Buxton, or maybe timetable planners like to leave stops out to try and catch out drivers?

Note the semaphore signals, around here coloured lights are for Christmas trees...

All these photos were taken from bridge 88, which carries a Public Footpath from Brown Edge Road past the site of the old steam shed and up towards the St. Peters Road and the A6. There was a platform here, which would have been located on the right in the second and third photos, called Fairfield, which was advertised as serving the golf club. The club however was a good half mile away, most of it uphill. The halt lasted until 1939. (Information taken from 'The Buxton Extension' by JM Bentley and GK Fox).

Paul.

*The wind just got worse as the day drew on, after taking these photos I went out for a hack on my road bike. Not pleasant cycling weather, but at least the rain held of until I was back indoors...

Grounded van bodies 10.

This one can be found in a field just outside Baslow in Derbyshire, between the river Derwent and the A623 (SK249731);

 

Does that look like 'WB 10'6"? If so I haven't a clue as to the type of van. One for the experts I think.

Paul.

A pair of derelict skip bodies.

Just outside Stoney Middleton, next to the A623, the eagle-eyed railway enthusiast might just spot a couple of old dumped skip bodies up an earthen bank. If said enthusiast has a camera he might even pull over and scramble up the rather steep bank in an undignified manner, especially if he's wearing an old pair of DMs rather than something more suited to steep loose earth. And these are the photos that he might have taken;

The first body;

These look like standard Hudson products. No sign of any chassis.
And the second;

These can be found at approximately SK217758, on the south side of the road. At the top of the bank is a worked out quarry. Nothing else of interest could be seen from the top of the bank.

Paul.

Chinley Pacer.

Pulling into Chinley station at 3pm today, a Pacer heading from Sheffield to Manchester;

For some reason I quite like Pacers, to my eyes they have charactor. Some say that they're uncomfortable, Dani didn't complain though.

One day I'll just have to jump on one myself, I've never actually travelled in this particular line but I imagine that its quite scenic.

This is the first time that I've been to Chinley station, the reason for today's visit was to pick up Dani who'd spent the morning in Sheffield. It seems to be a popular spot with enthusiasts judging by the fact that two photographers were stood on the platform, probably awaiting the 60 which passed through with a train of JGAs just as I reached the car park...

Paul.

Nigel Lawton OO9 Simplex part 8 - radiator.

For such a small part of the loco the radiator is a rather complex assembly, so its getting a post all to itself. This is probably quite apt as the radiator, which sits lengthways along the front of the loco, is such a distinctive part of a Simplex.

The main body is a whitemetal casting, onto which various etched nickel-silver parts are attached. I elected to solder everything together, more sensible folk might decide that glue is a better option.

There are various holes to be drilled before starting, both for hoses and underneath for locating, once thats done the top and bottom flanges and the fan surround can be soldered in place, these will of course need tinning first whilst still attached to the etch. In the photo below the upper flange is attached;

A light touch with the iron and a tiny amount of solder is all thats required. Here's the fan surround and lower flange in place;

I'm not happy with the way the surround sits on the left side, but I didn't notice the problem until I'd soldered the lower flange in place. I'll just have to live with it.
Underneath can be seen the radiator bars and pivot etch. Once bent to shape this will surround the casting, with the hole on the right being the fan pivot;

A hole is drilled through the pivot hole into the casting, and a short length of wire inserted to make an axle for the fan, which comprises of an etch and turned pulley soldered together. Here's the other (right hand) side, showing the protection bars;

The radiator has an etched bracket at the front which sits on the footplate. This is folded up and soldered underneath the casting, along with a short length of .4mm wire which locates in an etched hole in the footplate. Another bracket sits on the top of the front crossmember and butts up against the rear of the radiator. Here it is soldered in place;

A fiddly job...
I soldered the radiator only at the front, where it meets the footplate. It took me a couple of attempts to get it to sit straight, and unfortunately I damaged the bottom of the casting with the iron. Luckily its difficult to spot but I'm still not happy. I glued the rear of the radiator to the crossmember bracket with a drop of cyano.

Next up are the hoses. The instructions only mention the top hose, which is .6mm brass rod, cyano'd into the casting and soldered to the underside of the bonnet. I've also added the bottom hose, from .4mm rod, and the overflow pipe, which sits on the opposite side. This is 38swg copper wire cyano'd into a .2mm hole, hardly worth the effort to be honest but for some reason I'm glad its there.

Here's a couple of photos of the radiator in place;

So that's the radiator. One casting, seven etched parts, one turned part, and five pieces of wire (of which two were my own additions).The level of detail in this kit is staggering!

All soldering done with my 25w Antex, using Eileen's Strong Flux and 188 degree solder for tinning and Carrs 70 degree for attaching the etches to the casting.

I once rebuilt the radiator on a full-size 20/28 Simplex. Two heavy castings formed the top and bottom tanks, held apart by steel side plates. Ribbed cooling tubes ran between the castings, held in place at both ends by rubber bungs. Each tube had to be pushed up through a bung into the top casting, then pulled down through the bottom bung. I can't remember how many ribs there were, but it wasn't a pleasant job as the ribbed tubes cut into your hands. It didn't leak though.

Paul.

OO9 Ruston Proctor part 3 - mounting the chassis to the body and adding a little weight.

The first job was to clean the body, the usual way seems to be to soak the print in white spirit for a couple of hours to remove any wax. I then gave it a scrub with Cif and a toothbrush. White spirit has a strange effect in Frosted Ultra Detail, it turns the material white which helps to show up any detail.
To mount the chassis I made up an inner footplate from .040" plasticard, which sits inside the body. Two 10BA nuts were soldered to scrap etch (to give a larger surface area for glueing) and epoxied onto the footplate which was in turn epoxied into the body;

The inner footplate sits on a ledge, so plasticard spacers have been needed to sit between the footplate and the chassis.
I've started adding weight as well by epoxying lead strip (aquarium plant weight) into the body sides, this puts the weight exactly where its needed, over the wheels. So far the loco weighs 27 grams.

The cab is quite thin, about .6mm thick, which makes it a little too flexible for my liking. So, being slightly paranoid (I keep reading about printed locos being dropped and broken), I've rolled a piece of brass to sit under the cab roof and added a brass 'spine' to the inside of the cab backsheet. Both are made from scrap etch and epoxied in place, and hopefully the 'spine' will be hardly noticable when the loco is painted.

Here it is sitting on its chassis;

The next job is to make a start on the frames, which will be made from plasticard and attached to the underside of the printed body.

Paul.

OO9 Ruston Proctor part 2 - chassis.

One of the reasons behind this build was to scratchbuild my own chassis, which has been an ambition of mine for quite a while now. Putting a ready made (or kit built body) on a scratchbuilt chassis might seem rather odd, but a lot of OO9 kits are designed for RTR chassis, some of which are out of production or just plain wrong for the loco modelled so learning to design and build my own running gear will have distinct advantages. And it should work out cheaper as well...

The frames are made from 1/4" x 1/64" brass strip, soldered together for drilling and milled down to 5.5mm deep. 1.7mm holes are drilled in the ends (10BA clearence) to allow the frames to be bolted together using 6mm long turned brass spacers;

The 10BA screws and nuts are removed after the spacers are soldered in place. Axle bearings are also turned on my Unimat. Note the milled cut-out under the frames, this is to provide clearence for the pick-ups. Also note that the turned spacers are cross drilled, these will be used to fasten the chassis into the body.

Motor/front bearing mount and rear bearing mount are made from the same brass strip. To locate them I fitted the axles with the gears in place, then used an off-cut of .040" plasticard to space each mount away from the gears. Checking the mesh was a tad fiddly, a case of tack then check with the gearing fitted in place before making the joint permament. The front gears are a little tight for my liking, but it runs without fuss so I'll leave alone.

Tenshodo 14:1 gears are used, the axle gears are supplied with a 2mm bore so I pressed them onto brass sleeves to reduce the bore to 1.5mm. The sleeves were made a sliding fit onto the axles, to be Loctited in place after the wheelsets were fitted. The worm shaft proved to be a fiddle to fit, mainly because of a lack of room due to my turned spacers. Sealed bearings are fitted both ends, held in place with super glue as Loctite wouldn't set, possibly because the bearings are stainless steel rather than the mild steel?
Here it is fitted up with the motor epoxied in place;

I've used one of Nigel Lawton's 10mm x 12mm Mini Motor's, these are rated at 12 volts so no resistor is needed unlike some of Nigel's smaller units. Power is transfered to the worm shaft using more of Nigel's components, a 1.2mm root pulley on the motor shaft and 4mm root pulley on the worm shaft, with a 6.5mm i/d drive belt. I'd rather have used a larger driven pulley but my chassis design wouldn't allow anything bigger between the frames, a design weakness which I shall just have to live with this time.

Wheels are Parkside 6.2mm disc. I wanted one side of the chassis to be live so that only one set of pick-ups were required, so on one side the wheels were modified by removing the tyre from the moulded plastic inner, and pressing the tyre onto a turned brass hub. I've done this before when converting Parkside wheels for split chassis use, described here.

Pick -ups are made from .315mm phospher bronze;

On the bench the chassis is a nice smooth runner, and once I'd adjusted the pick-ups its pretty good on my oval of Kato as well. I may yet swap the pick-up wire with thinner phospher bronze, to see if I can improve the running even more. When I fitted the pick-ups I soldered the motor wire on first using 188 degree solder then use 145 degree for the pick-up wire, so I should be able to unsolder the pick-ups without disturbing the motor wire. Thats the theory anyway...

So, thats my first scratchbuilt OO9 chassis. The basic design is nothing new, in fact its a bit of a cliche, and if I was starting again I'd do things differently, perhaps using with 4mm diameter spacers rather that the 5mm dia. ones that I used, which would have made fitting the worm shaft easier. It would also have been far better to shorten the frames at the front, basically cutting away everything ahead of the motor/bearing mount to allow a larger driven pulley to be fitted, but I wanted the chassis to be attached at the ends, for stability as the body is quite a bit longer than the wheelbase. Still, if nothing else it looks neat!

Next job is to mount the chassis into the body.

Paul.

OO9 Ruston Proctor part 1 - a look at the body and references.

Ruston Proctor were one of the early builders of internal combustion locomotives. They made single pot and two cylinder petrol/paraffin locos, think of a low revving horizontal stationary engine, complete with a pair of heavy flywheels, on wheels, enclosed in a characterfull body complete with steam engine style 'chimney' (actually a vent for the cooling water hopper). These locos were based on a German design, from Duetz, and many were built for shunting gunpowder factories during WW1. Some were also sold to industrial concerns, both at home and abroad, to gauges varying from 1'4" to 3'3". One loco was even built to 3'5" with outside flanges for Associated Portland Cement's odd system in Swanscombe. The wheels either sat inside or outside of the frames according to gauge.

This project started with the purchase of a 3D printed body from Tebee's Shapeways shop. This is for the upper body only, everything below the footplate, including the mechanism, needs to be scratchbuilt;

Its printed in Frosted Ultra Detail, and some layering is evident. So work will be needed to smooth out the surface finish. Comparing the body to the drawing published in the Parkinson book (see below) shows that its actually overscale by a fair amount. The length should measure a scale 9'11" (not including buffers), in fact it works out at 11'6", the width, which should be a scale 3'6", is actually 5' and the cab height from the footplate is a scale 6' when it should be 4'4". Still, the level of detail is very good and it gives me more room to fit a mechanism in there.

The first job is to sort out a chassis.

References;

'Ruston Proctor and Hornsby Akroyd Oil-Engined Locomotives' by Robin J. Parkinson, Moseley Railway Trust. All you need really. Very good drawings.

'Railways of the Royal Gunpowder Factory Waltham Abbey' by J.M. Jenkins, Moseley Railway Trust. A reprint of an Industrial Railway Society book. Includes the same drawing as the above book.

'The Eighteen Inch Gauge Gunpowder Factory Railway at Waltham Abbey', Brian Clarke, privately published. Includes a 4mm scale drawing.

'The British Internal Combustion Locomotive 1894-1940', Brian Webb, David & Charles.

'Narrow Gauge & Industrial Railway Modelling Review' 66, re-print of an article from 'Engineering' magazine, with a cut-away drawing.

Paul.